Karzai's U.S. visit a time for tough talk

The last time Presidents Obama and Karzai met was in May in Kabul, when they signed a pact regarding U.S. troop withdrawal.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Afghan President Karzai meeting with President Obama in Washington this week


• Felbab-Brown: Afghan politics are corrupt; army not ready for 2014 troop pullout


• She says Taliban, insurgents, splintered army, corrupt officials are all jockeying for power


• U.S. needs to commit to helping Afghan security, she says, and insist corruption be wiped out

Editor's note: Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Her latest book is "Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan."

(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is meeting this week with President Obama in Washington amid increasing ambivalence in the United States about what to do about the war in Afghanistan.

Americans are tired of the war. Too much blood and treasure has been spent. The White House is grappling with troop numbers for 2013 and with the nature and scope of any U.S. mission after 2014. With the persisting corruption and poor governance of the Afghan government and Karzai's fear that the United States is preparing to abandon him, the relationship between Kabul and Washington has steadily deteriorated.

As the United States radically reduces its mission in Afghanistan, it will leave behind a stalled and perilous security situation and a likely severe economic downturn. Many Afghans expect a collapse into civil war, and few see their political system as legitimate.

Karzai and Obama face thorny issues such as the stalled negotiations with the Taliban. Recently, Kabul has persuaded Pakistan to release some Taliban prisoners to jump-start the negotiations, relegating the United States to the back seat. Much to the displeasure of the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan government also plans to release several hundred Taliban-linked prisoners, although any real momentum in the negotiations is yet to take place.

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Washington needs to be careful that negotiations are structured in a way that enhances Afghanistan's stability and is not merely a fig leaf for U.S. and NATO troop departure. Countering terrorism will be an important U.S. interest after 2014. The Taliban may have soured on al Qaeda, but fully breaking with the terror group is not in the Taliban's best interest. If negotiations give the insurgents de facto control of parts of the country, the Taliban will at best play it both ways: with the jihadists and with the United States.

Negotiations of a status-of-forces agreement after 2014 will also be on the table between Karzai and Obama. Immunity of U.S. soldiers from Afghan prosecution and control over detainees previously have been major sticking points, and any Afghan release of Taliban-linked prisoners will complicate that discussion.

Karzai has seemed determined to secure commitments from Washington to deliver military enablers until Afghan support forces have built up. The Afghan National Security Forces have improved but cannot function without international enablers -- in areas such as air support, medevac, intelligence and logistical assets and maintenance -- for several years to come. But Washington has signaled that it is contemplating very small troop levels after 2014, as low as 3,000. CNN reports that withdrawing all troops might even be considered.

Everyone is hedging their bets in light of the transition uncertainties and the real possibility of a major security meltdown after 2014. Afghan army commanders are leaking intelligence and weapons to insurgents; Afghan families are sending one son to join the army, one to the Taliban and one to the local warlord's militia.

Patronage networks pervade the Afghan forces, and a crucial question is whether they can avoid splintering along ethnic and patronage lines after 2014. If security forces do fall apart, the chances of Taliban control of large portions of the country and a civil war are much greater. Obama can use the summit to announce concrete measures -- such as providing enablers -- to demonstrate U.S. commitment to heading off a security meltdown. The United States and international security forces also need to strongly focus on countering the rifts within the Afghan army.

Assisting the Afghan army after 2014 is important. But even with better security, it is doubtful that Afghanistan can be stable without improvements in its government.

Afghanistan's political system is preoccupied with the 2014 elections. Corruption, serious crime, land theft and other usurpation of resources, nepotism, a lack of rule of law and exclusionary patronage networks afflict governance. Afghans crave accountability and justice and resent the current mafia-like rule. Whether the 2014 elections will usher in better leaders or trigger violent conflict is another huge question mark.

Emphasizing good governance, not sacrificing it to short-term military expediencies by embracing thuggish government officials, is as important as leaving Afghanistan in a measured and unrushed way -- one that doesn't jeopardize the fledgling institutional and security capacity that the country has managed to build up.

Karzai has been deaf and blind to the reality that reducing corruption, improving governance and allowing for a more pluralistic political system are essential for Afghanistan's stability. His visit provides an opportunity to deliver the message again -- and strongly.

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The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Vanda Felbab-Brown.

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Poisoned lottery winner's wife has 'nothing to hide,' attorney says

The widow of a West Rogers Park man who died of cyanide poisoning weeks after winning a $1 million lottery jackpot was questioned extensively by Chicago police last month after the medical examiner's office reclassified the death as a homicide, her attorney told the Tribune on Tuesday.

Authorities investigating the death of Urooj Khan also executed a search warrant at the home he had shared with his wife, Shabana Ansari, according to Steven Kozicki, her attorney. Ansari later was interviewed by detectives for more than four hours, answering all their questions, the attorney said.

"She's got nothing to hide," Kozicki said.

The mystery surrounding Khan's death — first reported by the Tribune Monday — has sparked international media interest.

Cook County authorities said Tuesday that they plan to go to court in the next few days for approval to exhume Khan's remains at Rosehill Cemetery. In a telephone interview Tuesday, Medical Examiner Stephen J. Cina said he sent a sworn statement to prosecutors laying out why the body must be exhumed.

"I feel that a complete autopsy is needed for the sake of clarity and thoroughness," Cina said.

Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office, confirmed that papers seeking the exhumation would be filed soon in the Daley Center courthouse.

Khan, who owned a dry cleaning business on the city's North Side, died unexpectedly in July at 46, just weeks after winning a million-dollar lottery prize at a 7-Eleven store near his home. Finding no trauma to his body and no unusual substances in his blood, the medical examiner's office declared his death to be from natural causes and he was buried without an autopsy.

About a week later, a relative told authorities to take a closer look at Khan's death. By early December, comprehensive toxicology tests showed that Khan had died of a lethal amount of cyanide, leading the medical examiner's office to reclassify the death a homicide and prompting police and prosecutors to investigate.

While a motive has not been determined, police have not ruled out that Khan was killed because of his big lottery win, a law enforcement source has told the Tribune. He died before he could collect the winnings — about $425,000 after taxes and because he decided to take a lump-sum payment.

According to court records obtained by the Tribune, Khan's brother has squabbled with Ansari over the money in probate court. The brother, Imtiaz, raised concern that because Khan left no will, his 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage would not get "her fair share" of her father's estate. Khan and Ansari did not have children.

Al-Haroon Husain, an attorney for Ansari in the probate case, said the money was all accounted for and the estate was in the process of being divided up by the court. Under Illinois law, the estate typically would be split evenly between the surviving spouse and Khan's only child, he said.

Kozicki, Ansari's criminal defense attorney, said his client adored her husband and had no financial interest in seeing harm come to him.

"Now in addition to grieving her husband, she's struggling to run the business that he essentially ran while he was alive," Kozicki said. "Once people analyze it, they (would) realize she's in a much worse financial position after his death than she was before."

Reached by phone Tuesday evening at the family dry cleaners, Ansari denied reports that she had fed her husband a traditional Indian meal of ground beef curry before he died. She said he wasn't feeling well after awakening in the middle of the night. She said he sat in a chair and soon collapsed. She then called 911.

Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, speaking Tuesday at an unrelated news conference, remarked that he had never seen a case like this in 32 years in law enforcement.

"So I'll never say that I've seen everything," he told reporters.

jmeisner@tribune.com

jgorner@tribune.com

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Historic old Jeddah awaits life-saving restoration

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - In the heart of Saudi Arabia's sprawling Red Sea port city of Jeddah, centuries-old buildings tilt and buckle above the historic district's narrow alleys, withering away in the absence of decisive action to protect them.

The seventh-century historic district, with its mud and coral town houses adorned with ornate wooden balconies, holds the only remnants of the traditional architecture of the Hijaz, as the western Arabian Peninsula is known.

But while Jeddah is building the world's tallest tower as part of a modernization drive, efforts to preserve its oldest area are faltering.

"Every time I walk and see these houses it hurts," said Abir AbuSulayman, who lives in the modern part of Jeddah but lobbies for the restoration of the old city.

"I wasn't born here or ever lived in the area but I can feel how important it is and I feel proud that we have real history."

Restoration efforts have been left largely in private hands because Saudi authorities cannot by law intervene to renovate the privately owned homes in the district. Locals say the government has not shown enough interest in resolving the problem, or in breaking a logjam in financing the improvement of the area's public infrastructure.

As a result, a quarter of the houses in the district's square kilometer have collapsed, burnt down or been demolished in the past decade because home-owners cannot afford costly renovations and have little interest or incentive to do so.

Houses where the wealthiest Jeddah merchants once lived are now cheap dwellings for poor foreign laborers, beggars and illegal immigrants. Of the historic district's estimated 40,000 inhabitants, fewer than 5 percent are Saudis, the district's mayor Malak Baissa estimated.

Webs of intertwined cables cascade down the houses' dilapidated facades while satellite dishes hang from their cracked walls and rusty air conditioners protrude from their rotting wooden balconies.

A previous effort to list the historic area as a UNESCO world heritage site, which officials say would jumpstart restoration work, failed in part because there was no realistic master plan.

The government plans to resubmit its application to UNESCO this month, and this time has included proposals to encourage home-owners to restore their properties under expert guidance with loans and other financial incentives, as is the practice in some other countries with huge restoration projects.

"We are very optimistic that once it is registered everybody will come forward and be enthusiastic about (the restoration)," said Abdulgader Amir, the municipality's vice mayor for strategic planning.

CONSTANT MAINTENANCE

Jeddah's humid climate rots the houses' wood and erodes their walls, meaning they require constant maintenance. Local laws stipulate that this be done with mud and coral limestone drawn from the Red Sea, using costly traditional building techniques.

"The house will deteriorate if there is no one to take care of it. Like an old garment, if you don't patch it up it will disintegrate," said Younis al-Jazar, among the few Saudi citizens who still live in the area, where he was born and raised.

Costs of restoration vary depending on the size and extent of damage to a house, but can range from 50,000 riyals ($13,000) to over 3 million. Jazar said regular maintenance on his family home costs at least 6,000 riyals a year.

The local property market further discourages restoration efforts: new buildings in the area can command rents of 50,000 riyals a year compared with 2,400 for old houses.

"They (owners) know they are sitting on a very valuable land in the city center. They want to get rid of the old houses to build new structures," Amir said.

Of 600 old houses counted a decade ago only 450 remain.

Although the central government has instructed the city to spend $53 million to help restore the public parts of the district, the money must come from the city's own coffers, Amir said.

This is something that Jeddah, where creaking infrastructure contributed to deadly floods in 2010 and 2011, and which is completely overhauling its transport networks, cannot now afford.

"We can barely cover costs, so it's like giving something but it is not real... But we will keep asking for it," he said.

The government has bought and restored some properties in the area, including a 13th-century mosque and the house where Saudi founder Abdul Aziz al Saud lived when in Jeddah, but officials say it would be too expensive to purchase more buildings so they are now planning to provide state loans.

FRUSTRATION

Adhering to an austere version of Sunni Islam which prohibits the veneration of objects, Saudi Arabia has until recently neglected and even destroyed many of its historic sites such as homes and tombs of iconic Islamic figures in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

It has now listed two sites, the Nabatean rock-dwellings of Madain Saleh and the ruling al-Saud family's historical capital of Diriyah, with UNESCO and is working hard to protect its heritage there.

"Here in the kingdom there was a lack of awareness and appreciation for heritage and we have, in ignorance, destroyed many sites including Old Riyadh ... but thank goodness we have passed that stage," said Ali al-Ghabban, the Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Supreme Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, a government department.

Some Jeddah citizens and other people from Hijaz, which includes Mecca, Medina and the old port town of Yanbu, accuse the government of playing regional favorites, stirring old resentments dating to the al-Saud's conquest of Hijaz in 1923.

They point to the investment of at least $133 million in preserving Diriyah and compare it unfavorably with the continuing neglect of cultural sites in their cities.

Amir defended the central government's priorities, however.

"Anything historical that has to do with the government and its establishment is naturally important ... that does not mean that Jeddah is neglected. But it was just a lot easier to deal with Diriyah considering no one lives there, it is much smaller than Jeddah and the government owns the whole area," he said.

As the authorities consider how to proceed with restoration of the historic district, Jeddah residents like AbuSulayman continue to lobby for swifter action and monitor the development in the area as best as they can.

"We don't have the power to make decisions but we are here," she said. "We need help ... (and) we are willing to do more."

(Editing by Angus McDowall and Sonya Hepinstall)

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Wall Street dips as earnings season begins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed at the open on Tuesday as an earnings season expected to show sluggish corporate growth gets under way.

Profits in the fourth quarter are seen above the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

If earnings growth appears to be "less bad" than expected that would translate into a near-term uptick in the market, according to Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in New York.

"But I think there's still ample areas for concern," he said, listing policy worries in Washington and uneven economic activity as a result of Superstorm Sandy during last quarter.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 40.65 points, or 0.30 percent, to 13,343.64. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 4.28 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,457.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 5.04 points, or 0.16 percent, to 3,093.78.

German data showed industrial orders fell more than forecast in November due to a sharp drop in demand from abroad, reinforcing concerns that Europe's largest economy may have contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Monsanto Co shares rose 3.2 percent to $99.05 after hitting a more than four-year high at $99.99. The world's largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.

Education provider Apollo Group and Dow component Alcoa Inc , the largest U.S. aluminum producer, round out the start of earnings season after the closing bell.

Shares of restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands Inc fell 4.6 percent to $64.78 a day after the KFC parent warned sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

London-traded Vodafone shares rose almost 2 percent after its partner in U.S. joint venture Verizon Wireless said it would be "feasible" to buy out the British group. U.S.-traded Vodafone stock fell 1.5 percent.

Sears Holdings shares fell 1.4 percent to $42.31 a day after the company said its chief executive will step down for family health reasons. The U.S. retailer also reported a 1.8 percent decline in quarter-to-date sales at stores open at least a year.

GameStop shares fell 7.1 percent to $23 after it reported sales for the holiday season and cut its guidance.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Maine gas prices up 2 cents

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The cost of gas in Maine is on the rise again.

Price-monitoring website MaineGasPrices.com reports Monday that the average retail price of a gallon of gas in Maine rose more than two cents in the past week to $ 3.54. The site surveys more than 1,200 Maine gas stations.

The price of gas in Maine remains 28 cents above the national average, which was unchanged in the past week.

Prices in Maine are now nine cents per gallon higher than the same day a year ago and less than a penny higher than a month ago.

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Australian firefighters battle bush blazes, intense heat

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Federal government steps in with fuel, personnel to help NSW fire effort


• More than 130 fires are burning across NSW during one of the hottest days on record


• 90% of the Australian state is under "severe" or higher fire warnings


• High temperatures and dry conditions have combined to create "dangerous day"

Editor's note: Are you there? Send your stories, images to iReport

(CNN) -- Soaring temperatures and strong winds have combined to create a "catastrophic" fire threat across the southeast Australian state of New South Wales.

Residents have been warned to remain vigilant as temperatures rise towards a predicted high of 43 degrees (109 degrees Fahrenheit) in the state capital of Sydney.

In some areas of the state, winds of more than 70 kilometers an hour (43 mph) were threatening to fan the flames of fires already burning. However, a change in wind direction had caused temperatures in certain parts of the state to fall, offering some relief.

A "catastrophic" fire risk has been declared in four areas of NSW, although the risk across 90% of the state is "severe" or above. A "catastrophic" warning carries the risk of significant loss of life and the destruction of many homes, according to the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS).

"I cannot say it more plainly: the risk is real and potentially deadly. People need to act now," the service's Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.

The "catastrophic" fire threat had led many to fear a repeat of "Black Saturday" in 2009, when soaring temperatures and high winds fanned the flames of a series of bushfires across the state of Victoria, leaving 173 people dead and 500 injured, and destroying thousands of homes.

Australia battles bush blazes, intense heat

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On Tuesday afternoon, the Australian government announced that the state fire service would be granted access to Defence Force bases, fuel and personnel as part of the federal government disaster response plan.

Earlier, Prime Minister Julia Gillard warned it was "dangerous" day and urged people to "stay focused."

"The word catastrophic is being used for good reason," Gillard told CNN affiliate the Seven Network.

"It is very important that people keep themselves safe, that they listen to local authorities and local warnings."

Total fire bans were place in the states of NSW, Victoria and across the whole of Tasmania, the southern island state ravaged by fire in recent days.

On Tuesday afternoon, more than 130 fires were burning throughout NSW, with over 40 of those yet to be controlled, according to NSW RFS.

There were no reports of any homes having being destroyed but authorities warned that the dry, hot conditions were expected to stretch into the night.

"It's a long way ahead -- we've got a lot of daylight left and a lot of nighttime left under these conditions," Fitzsimmons said.

Thousands of firefighters were battling blazes on the ground, and more than 40 aircraft and 250 fire trucks had been deployed, a fire service spokeswoman said.

Thousands more firefighters were on standby in high risk areas, including 21 "strike teams," each consisting of five tankers to assist local brigades.

The fire service said it was relying on people to report fires in their areas, but that surveillance flights were also monitoring the landscape for smoke and flames.

Authorities said residents and tourists had responded well to early warnings to abandon properties under threat.

"If you are in a bushfire risk area -- if you are an at risk location, leaving early is the safest option," Fitzsimmons said.

Record high temperatures and the delayed state of the Australian monsoon season have created a tinderbox out of large swathes of bush and scrub land across the state.

The last four months of 2012 were "abnormally hot" across Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Meterology. Average maximum temperatures were the highest since records began in 1910.

In the first days of the new year, extreme heat contributed to the spread of fires across Tasmania.

Firefighters are still on alert, tackling a number of blazes, as residents who were in the path of the earlier fires returned to the charred rubble of their homes. More than 100 properties were destroyed or damaged, though authorities warn more may be at risk.

Rescue workers are continuing to search for human remains as around 100 people have still not contacted friends or family, according to Tasmania police.

"It's vitally important that all people who were in the area at the time, and are OK, self-register their details with the National Registration and Inquiry Service operated by the Red Cross," said Acting Deputy Commissioner Donna Adams.

Meanwhile, police have charged a 31-year-old man for allegedly causing one of the worst of the fires by leaving a campfire unattended that was not completely extinguished.

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Field Museum team helps uncover T. rex of the sea

Research and planning are often key factors scientists cite when they make a great discovery. Only rarely does being out of shape play a role.

But Field Museum scientist Jim Holstein said being dog-tired after a long day of trekking through a Nevada mountain range led to his find of a new type of prehistoric marine reptile that on Monday was laid out, in fossil form, on a table in the Chicago museum.

The 28-foot-long animal is now known as Thalattoarchon saurophagis, "lizard-eating ruler of the seas," a member of the very successful ichthyosaur family that lived, for the most part concurrently with dinosaurs, for 160 million years.

It died roughly 244 million years ago and is the earliest type of ichthyosaur — and only the second on record — to show signs of being a "superpredator" that ate animals of its own size atop the marine food chain in a manner similar to a killer whale, said Nadia Frobisch, lead author of the paper describing the new species that appeared in Monday's electronic issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Before getting its new scientific name, it was known simply as "Jim," after Holstein, who credits his discovery to being the most exhausted of the original search party 141/2 years ago.

He was in central Nevada's Augusta Mountains, returning to camp along a high ridge after a day of searching for fossils in an ancient seabed turned mountainside.

His colleagues, Martin Sander and Olivier Rieppel, were seasoned climbers, cheery as they contemplated dinner. Holstein was not, and was especially tired after a long hot day toward the end of an exhausting expedition.

"They both walked over this animal," Holstein said Monday. "My head hung low."

And because of that he saw in the rock, near some juniper bushes along a wild mustang trail, the skull of the ichthyosaur that, upon closer examination, turned out to have a distinctive feature.

Ichthyosaurs — from the Greek for "fish lizard" — were once plentiful in what is now Nevada. The creature, a reptile that evolved from a land to sea animal and resembled a dolphin, is the official state fossil.

But most had more modest teeth, suitable only for dining on smaller marine life. The teeth of the specimen Holstein found were large and had two cutting surfaces, suggesting it might have killed and eaten other large animals.

Finding a big specimen is one thing. Excavating it is quite another.

"It's very, very difficult terrain, very difficult to get these fossils out of these mountains," said Rieppel, the Field's Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology.

In addition to that, the trio didn't fully understand the potential significance of what they had found, Sander said in an email. So "Jim" was entered into Sander's field notes for the expedition on July 24, 1998 and essentially forgotten for seven years, when it caught the attention of some of Sanders' students at the University of Bonn in Germany.

"Lars (Schmitz) and I stumbled over the notes that Martin had taken on that last field day ... which said 'large ichthyosaur discovered with cutting edges on the teeth,'" Frobisch, then a University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar who now works at a museum in Berlin, recalled via email.

"This immediately gripped our attention, as there is only one very poorly preserved ichthyosaur known from the Himalaya region to have cutting edges on the teeth."

Sander recalled Schmitz, Frobisch and another student "storming into my office one day and demanding to go" and see this animal.

After a 2005 scientific conference in Arizona, Sander, Frobisch and Schmitz returned to the scene and confirmed the finding. "We knew it was quite likely it was a new taxon," or population group, said Schmitz, who now teaches at the Claremont Colleges in California

The National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration provided a $20,000 grant to excavate the fossil, a spokeswoman said. An almost monthlong trip in 2008 brought the skeleton, encased in an estimated 3,000 pounds of rock, to the Field, where preparators have been working on separating it from earth since.

The Field hopes to eventually put the relatively intact skeleton on display, Rieppel said, but the top priority has been to examine the most significant parts of the fossil in order to identify it definitively as a previously unknown ichthyosaur.

For now, the head and a roughly 3-foot vertebrae section from near the tail are in a third-floor office at the museum. Chunks of rocks containing other bones rest on an adjacent table.

It looks a little rough. Holstein described the head, flattened and condensed by fossilization, as looking "like a killer pancake right now." But it is a killer pancake with scientific significance.

"Our 'Jim' was the first in a long row of 'T. rexes' of the sea," Sander said. "At the level of the ecosystem, the discovery is important because the presence of a top predator indicates that (roughly) 242 million years ago, 8 million years after the catastrophe (when life on earth nearly ended at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago), the modern ecosystems had evolved in the sea. Nothing fundamentally happened since then. The food web remained the same, only the players changed.

"To put it in one sentence, the discovery shows two new things: What the first top predator in the sea was like and how quickly it evolved after the catastrophe."

sajohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @StevenKJohnson

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Tunisia frees man held over attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia has freed, for lack of evidence, a Tunisian man who had been suspected of involvement in an Islamist militant attack in Libya last year in which the U.S. ambassador was killed, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Ali Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the violence in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other American officials were killed.

"The judge decided to free Harzi and he is free now," lawyer Anouar Awled Ali told Reuters. "The release came in response to our request to free him for lack of evidence and after he underwent the hearing with American investigators as a witness in the case."

A Tunisian justice ministry spokesman confirmed the release of Harzi but declined to elaborate.

A month ago, Harzi refused to be interviewed by visiting U.S. FBI investigators over the September 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

The Daily Beast reported that shortly after the attacks began, Harzi posted an update on an unspecified social media site about the fighting.

It said Harzi was on his way to Syria when he was detained in Turkey at the behest of U.S. authorities, and that he was affiliated with a militant group in North Africa.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Stocks dip at open after five-year high

DEAR ABBY: I spent the afternoon running errands. As I left the shopping center, I saw a young couple with a baby and a toddler holding a sign requesting help with food, as the husband had just been laid off. I drove past, then considered the children and circled back. I had no cash with me, so I stopped and offered them our family's dinner -- a jar of premium spaghetti sauce, a pound of fresh ground beef, a box of dried spaghetti, fruit cups that my children usually take to school for treats, and some canned soups I occasionally have for lunch. ...

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Here come the big boys

Here come the big boys.

The NFL's wild-card weekend is over, with nary an upset. Moving on are division winners Green Bay, Houston and Baltimore, along with NFC West runner-up Seattle and the only rookie quarterback still standing: Russell Wilson.

Ahead are some daunting challenges as the Ravens visit Denver, the Texans go to New England, the Packers head to San Francisco and the Seahawks journey to Atlanta.

Only the Seahawks-Falcons isn't a rematch.

Seattle isn't intimidated one bit about facing the NFC's top seed.

"Despite the fact that we have a 'nobody' team," Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said after Sunday's convincing 24-14 comeback win at Washington, "a team not full of first-rounders and things like that, we have a lot of guys that play at a high level."

Of course, so do the Falcons (13-3), Broncos (13-3), Patriots (12-4) and 49ers (11-4-1).

"They have a great coach and a great quarterback and they have great role players on their team," Texans running back Arian Foster said of the Patriots, who routed Houston 42-14 last month. "I have a lot of respect for them, but we can play ball, too."

The Texans beat Cincinnati 19-13 on Saturday, then Green Bay took out Minnesota 24-10. In Sunday's other game, Baltimore eliminated Indianapolis 24-9.

The playoffs continue next Saturday with Baltimore (11-6) at Denver, followed by Green Bay (12-5) at San Francisco. The Broncos beat the Ravens 34-17 three weeks ago, while the 49ers knocked off the Packers 30-22 in the season opener.

On Sunday, it's Seattle (12-5) at Atlanta, followed by Houston (13-4) visiting New England.

___

Ravens at Broncos

Not only is Baltimore thrilled to keep playing and keep star linebacker Ray Lewis' career going, but the Ravens got the opponent they sought for the divisional round.

"I wanted Denver," said Anquan Boldin, who set a franchise record with 145 yards receiving, including the clinching touchdown against Indianapolis (11-6). "Because they beat us. We'll make it different."

Lewis made 13 tackles in his first game back in nearly three months. He ended his last home game in Baltimore before his impending retirement by lining up at fullback for the final kneel-down. Then Lewis went into a short version of his trademark dance before being mobbed by teammates. He followed with a victory lap, his right triceps, covered by a brace, held high in salute to the fans.

Joe Flacco became the first quarterback to win a postseason game in each of his first five seasons and John Harbaugh is the first coach to do so.

"I love our team," Lewis said, "and I'm really looking forward to going out there and playing them next week."

The loss ended the Colts' turnaround season in which they went from 2-14 to the playoffs in coach Chuck Pagano's first year in Indianapolis. Pagano missed 12 weeks while undergoing treatment for leukemia and returned last week.

Andrew Luck completed 28 of 54 passes, the most attempts by a rookie in a playoff game, for 288 yards.

Packers at 49ers

It's been a long time since these teams met on kickoff weekend, and much has changed.

Green Bay has become a bit more balanced on offense and somewhat stingier on defense than it was back in September. San Francisco has second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick instead of Alex Smith, and receiver Michael Crabtree finally has developed into a threat.

The Packers held league rushing king Adrian Peterson to 99 yards in beating the Vikings (10-7), 100 yards less than he got on them the previous week.

"I don't think we had our identity at that point," QB Aaron Rodgers said of the Packers team San Francisco beat. "We were trying a lot of different things."

Seahawks at Falcons

Atlanta has flopped in its last three playoff games, including losing at home to Green Bay two years ago in a similar scenario.

Seattle won't bring as high-powered an offense as the Packers did to Atlanta, but it's versatile enough with the creative Wilson, bulldozing halfback Marshawn Lynch and a deep group of receivers.

The most significant challenge for the Falcons, though, will be a defense that completely shut down the Redskins and a hobbling Robert Griffin III for the final three quarters of their wild-card game.

Washington (10-7) had 129 yards in the first quarter and 74 for the rest of the game.

"Seventy yards in 3½ quarters is ridiculously good defense," coach Pete Carroll said after his Seahawks won their sixth straight and snapped Washington's seven-game winning streak.

Texans at Patriots

Both teams say the Monday night romp by New England on Dec. 10 is not an indicator of what's ahead. For their sake, the Texans better hope that is true.

"We didn't play our best football up there and we hurt ourselves with penalties and mistakes," said Foster, who rushed for 140 yards and a TD against the Bengals (10-7). "Anytime you give (the Patriots) opportunities, they'll take advantage of them. But we'll play our best up there."

They have no choice, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick fully expects a tighter game.

"When you play a team twice during the season, the games are totally different. They never go the same way," Belichick said. "We'll be able to certainly look at some of the matchups individually, guys that faced each (other) in the game. As far as plays and calls and things like that matching up, I'm sure they'll have some new wrinkles. I'm sure we'll have some, too. It will be totally different."

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